On Sat, Feb 26, 2011 at 23:14, Stan Goodman <stan.good...@hashkedim.com> wrote: > You mean Pitriya, mushroom, fungus? I would be enormously surprised if > this was a word so modern that it had to be invented by, or named for, a > 19 - 20th century biologist. Pitriyot have surely been eaten here for > millenia. I don't think Ben-Yehuda had to invent it. It's a proper > Hebrew word. >
I was suspicious due to the similarity in name to the Petri dish. Coincidences happen, it seems. > Etymology isn't necessaily associated with borrowing words from other > languages, so I suppose at least some of those hits include examples of > borrows. Hebrew is like most other languages, in that it borrows words > when it hasn't got native ones -- and sometimes even if it does. For > example, salmon is almost always called "salmon" now in the supermarket > (and everybody pronounces the "L", which is not done at all in English); > I'm sure lots of people don't know what "Iltit" means or what sort of > animal it is. The Talmud has borrows from Greek, because that was what > people were exposed to; for example, "Baskilos" (slightly distorted from > Greek "Basilikos") is sometimes used for "king", although "Melekh" was > certainly available. > I did not realise that Iltit is salmon, thanks! If you have any more treasures like these please let me know about them! > What, after all, are universities for? =;-/8 On the other hand, it may > be a mistake not to inqure also at the Academy. > Yes, I will do that, thanks. -- Dotan Cohen http://gibberish.co.il http://what-is-what.com _______________________________________________ Linux-il mailing list Linux-il@cs.huji.ac.il http://mailman.cs.huji.ac.il/mailman/listinfo/linux-il
